Dialed in, but losing out

Conroy Ganson accelerates into a real life drifting course, unlike the online experience many would choose over the real thing, argues David Booth.

Ryan Jackson, Edmonton Journal

by
David Booth, Postmedia News | January 19, 2012

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Soon, probably some time in the very near future, we’re all going to have to ask ourselves a question, one whose profundity extends far beyond a mere automotive column, one that’s being pondered by far deeper thinkers than me.

Indeed, I hesitate to ask it here since I am but a mere car journo and, while the automotive industry may employ 50 million people worldwide, its plight is still trifling by comparison. So, at the risk of revealing just how shallow I truly am, I posit the following:

Can we really believe that a virtual world is truly the equal of real life?

Yes, I know it sounds suspiciously like something an undergrad philosophy student with not enough homework might try to use to impress the cutie in line at Starbucks. Nonetheless, it is a question perplexing automobile manufacturers. The stranglehold on the hearts and minds of the young that they’ve enjoyed since the invention of the automobile is slowly slipping away as our spawn closet themselves away in their basement lairs, noses buried in iPhones or iPads or whatever else passes for human interaction these days.

John McFarland, Chevrolet’s senior manager of global marketing strategy, probably expressed the situation best when he told attendees at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last week that 54% of millennials would rather connect with their friends via social media than actually get in their cars and physically interact.

That statistic, naturally, is extremely worrying to automakers. By General Motors’ reckoning, the youth market potentially represents as much as 40% of its sales, a real market in peril of losing its mojo to a virtual one.

That concern is already influencing car design. GM, for instance, launched its MyLink onboard infotainment system at the Detroit auto show, its latest complex and sophisticated interactive system seemingly a reaction to crosstown rival’s MyFord Touch system. It’s also yet another poke in the eye to all those safety experts decrying the distractions overwhelming those behind the wheels of their cars. One assumes that staying connected with one’s “Facebookies” is more important than not hitting that bridge abutment.

For a moment, put aside the thought that these may be the mutterings of a fuddy-duddy who wonders if young people will really be better off without experiencing the joy that is their first long-distance road trip. Or, that like all gear head dads, I assume my offspring’s existence would be enhanced with the piecing together of an ancient and crumbling Galaxie 500 with duct tape, bailing wire and, yes, even the judicious placement of a matchbook cover. Or even — God forbid the parents find out — the thrill of their first tire-squealing burnout in their father’s ’64 Biscayne. Those can be easily dismissed as just the reminisces of yet another old fogey longing for his past.

But do we really want to replace the real with the pretend? Virtually every one of the aforementioned youthful exploits can be replicated online, albeit with updated and more exotic machinery. Yet, does a full-throttle launch in a virtual Ferrari in any way match the real-world version in a rusty old two-tone Chevy (hey, it had the optional 283-cube V8)? Does an xBox ride around the Nürburgring circuit in any way replicate the terror of throwing a McLaren- powered BMW X6 into the Carousel? Hell, does anything digital even match the satisfaction of the first time you parallel park between two crowded sport-utility vehicles?

Still, there can be no denying the allure: We are a lazy species after all. Given the choice of swatting the perfect 200-kilometres-an-hour serve at Wimbledon and watching the same thing on TV, most of us will just grab a fresh bag of potato chips and sink farther into the couch. It is that very laziness that so concerns automakers. After all, why, if you’re a particularly lethargic youth, waste all that energy pushing down on a gas pedal in the real world where it might, God forbid, rain or snow, when you can just bang a few keys, never more than five metres away from the fridge and that two-litre jug of Mountain Dew?

The truly worrisome part, far deeper than concerns about whether any particular automaker — or even automobiles in general — survives is what happens to us when we can’t be motivated to get off our sorry behinds and go out and mingle.

Am I really on the delusional side of the slippery slope to wonder if this much Facebooking will turn us all into pasty blobs so inactive that we require robots to feed us our Twinkies? Far more prophetically, perhaps, are those relationships cultivated on the World Wide Web as significant as those formalized when we get in our cars and head over to watch the Super Bowl in our cousin John’s basement? My son, for instance, has legions of online “besties” but only one actual long-term good friend. You guessed it: They’ve known each other since Grade 3 and meet in person (she drives over) at least once a week.

For more than 100 years, the car has brought people together. So, too, now do Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and myriad other social media I’ve managed to avoid. I’ll leave it to you to decide which one does it better.

What’s the rush?

The rush to connectivity in cars does not seem to be slowing down despite the recent call to arms by U.S. safety nannies for decreased distraction inside cars. General Motors MyLink fairly emulates the MyFord Touch system with its ability to control virtually everything in the automobile. But, despite voice controls and a vivid display, there’s simply no way to guarantee that drivers‚ especially the easily distracted young, will not take their eyes off the road while driving. Scion’s introduction of the sporty new FR-S brings with it a new BeSpoke system that can check “wassup” with your buds via Facebook, look for a place to hook up and then direct you there, all while you’re supposedly concentrating on driving. No word on whether it will be front and centre on the 600-horsepower “drifting” version of the FR-S that Scion also introduced at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit last week.